“Good Gad, Peabody, I expected you would approve of my mild methods.” Striding along, hands in his pockets, Emerson glanced at me in feigned surprise. “I am familiar with men of Albion’s character; if I had not offered them alternatives, they would simply have moved to some other forbidden area. I can’t put curses on every site on the West Bank.”
“But the southwest wadis? The Valley of the Queens?”
“The entrance to the Valley of the Queens,” Emerson corrected. “There’s nothing of interest there. If they mount an expedition to the southwest wadis I will be surprised; it’s too far and too uncomfortable. Besides, you heard my condition. They will hire Soleiman Hassan as their reis. I will make sure he reports to me the instant they find anything – which is, in my opinion, unlikely. Why are you looking so glum, Vandergelt?”
“I kinda hoped for more fireworks,” Cyrus admitted. “Don’t count on Joe doing what you told him, Emerson. He holds a grudge against people who try to order him around.”
“Bah,” said Emerson.
“They were very polite,” Jumana murmured.
“Yes,” I said thoughtfully.
We collected Sennia and the picnic basket – and a reluctant but dogged Gargery – and went on to Deir el Medina, where we were forced to listen to another lecture, this one from Daoud. Selim had regaled him and a select audience with an edited version of our recent adventures, and Daoud was vibrating with indignation.
We had to apologize for leaving him behind and promise never to do it again.
“So Daoud knows all about it,” Cyrus remarked. His voice was mild but his expression was severe. The same look of reproach marked Bertie’s features.
“You promised me, ma’am,” he began.
“My dear boy, you must not take it personally. We don’t plan these things, you know; most of them just – well, they just happen.”
“This one didn’t,” Cyrus said. “You were in the war zone, I got that much from what Daoud said. Do you have less confidence in us than you do in him?”
“My sentiments exactly, ma’am,” said Bertie.
“Of course not,” I said heartily. “We will tell you all about it this evening; how’s that?”
“Precisely what are we going to tell them?” demanded Emerson, after he had succeeded in drawing me aside.
I had had a little chat with Selim before we left Cairo. I knew Ramses had told him part of the story, and I felt fairly certain he had worked the rest of it out. He had known Sir Edward Washington; he had known a great deal about Sethos; he had been present on several occasions when we had discussed matters that would enable a clever man, which Selim was, to put the pieces together. So I took him into my confidence, holding nothing back. If any man deserved that confidence, it was he.
“Ah,” said Selim, unsurprised. “I knew when I saw him clean-shaven that he must be a kinsman of the Father of Curses. They are very much alike. We do not speak of this to others, Sitt?”
“Except for Ramses and Nefret, you are the only one who knows. We do not speak of it, even to Vandergelt Effendi.”
His face brightened with gratified pride. “You can trust me, Sitt Hakim.”
“I am sure I can. But now we must work out what we are to tell the others, including Daoud.”
I repeated the conversation to Emerson, adding, “You may be sure Selim produced a thrilling narrative without giving anything important away. Anyhow, I am tired of all this confounded secrecy. The more tight-lipped and mysterious we are, the more suspicious people will be. A partial truth will put them off the track far better than silence.”
“You may be right,” Emerson agreed. “I will leave it to you, then, my dear. What have you done with my field notes?”
I found his notebook in the pile of papers he had brought, and set about erecting my little shelter.
“I must say it looks rather pitiful compared with the Albions’s arrangement,” I remarked to Nefret, who was helping me.
Nefret chuckled. “Did you ever see anything more ridiculous than Mrs. Albion in her armchair being hoisted aloft by those two poor fellows? God help either of them if he stumbles and spills her out. Mr. Albion would probably have him beheaded.”
“What did you think of their excessive courtesy to Jumana? That young man is not still under the impression that he can – er – win her over, surely.”
“Surely not,” Nefret said. “They were only trying to ingratiate themselves with us, Mother. And they succeeded. I’m like Cyrus; I was rather hoping Father would blow them to bits and perform one of his famous curses.”
“Oh, were you?” said Emerson, appearing upon the scene. “I cannot imagine why everyone in this family is under the false impression that I am a violent and unreasonable man. Bring the camera, Nefret; we are about to start on a new section.”
FROM MANUSCRIPT H
Emerson stood staring up at the hillside, his hand shading his eyes. He was, as usual, without a hat.
“May I have a moment of your time, Father?” Ramses asked.
“What the devil is Bertie doing up there?”
“Continuing his survey, I suppose. May I -”
“Certainly, my boy, certainly. Something about that new section?”
“No, sir. Something about the Albions. I would be happy to assist in whatever you’re planning, if you care to let me in on it.”
Emerson’s eyes shifted warily from side to side, around, and behind. “Promise you won’t tell your mother?”
“I’ll try not to. But you know how she -”
“Yes, yes, I do know. But this time, by Gad, I think I’m one step ahead of her. Come over here where she can’t hear us.”
His mother was two hundred feet away but Ramses let his father draw him aside. “Well, sir?”
Emerson took out his pipe. “It struck me as somewhat strange that the Albions would select that particular part of the valley. There is no more reason to expect a big find there than anywhere else. Unless they had a hint from someone.”
He lit a match and puffed. “A hint such as the fragment of wall painting?” Ramses asked. “Khonsu. He is a god and he has human hands.”
“As do many other gods,” Emerson said. “But the Albions, for all Sebastian’s book learning, haven’t much experience, and at the moment they are at a loss as to where to look.”
“For Jamil’s tomb?”
“I see the idea does not surprise you. What made you think of it?”
“I don’t like the Albions,” Ramses said. “Any of them.”
“I am glad to see you are beginning to trust your instincts,” his father said approvingly.
“As Mother would say -” Emerson’s scowl made him abandon that thought. “I don’t like their behavior toward Jumana,” Ramses elaborated. “Their attitude toward Egyptians is characteristic of their class and nationality – bigoted and prejudiced, in other words. After his initial blunder Sebastian has leaned over backward to be polite to her. Nefret thinks it is because they hope to ingratiate themselves with us, but there could be another reason.”
His father nodded. “Go on.”
“Let’s go at it from another direction. Jamil was getting financial support from someone. We assumed it was Yusuf, but there were those interesting items of European manufacture among his supplies. The Albions asked you to introduce them to a few tomb robbers. I don’t believe it was a joke. They had been asking around Gurneh, and Albion mentioned that ‘Mohammed’ had put them on to someone. What if that someone was Jamil?”
“Mohassib’s first name is Mohammed,” Emerson said.
“It might have been Mohassib, or Mohammed Hassan – or any one of several other Mohammeds. Those two are the most likely, however. Both had spoken with Jamil, both were afraid of him. What better way of conciliating him than to introduce him to a wealthy patron? Then Jamil was inconsiderate enough to get himself killed before he disclosed the location of the tomb. The Albions believe there’s a chance he confided in Jumana. An outside chance, but that’s what they have been reduced to.”